by Harold Wall
last moment."
"Thank..." He gasped, head back as if he'd received a blow, then brought the flames back under control. The way back quivered before them. "Thank you."Celia
scrambled out from under the table, on hands and knees, panicked. What if he hadn't heard?
Stand, it's only pain, she told herself, and put her weight onto her leg.
Red lights exploded on her vision, and she hung there, wheezing. Then hands closed about her, firm and strong. She looked up into his eyes, which were hot as the fire. "You came
for me," she said, and drew in a difficult breath. "You idiot."
"Of course I came. Someone had to break Finn's monopoly on stupid stunts." He looked down at her feet. "And if I'm the idiot, why don't you have any shoes on?"
"Oh, we're idiots together," she croaked, looping an arm around his shoulders as he pulled her up. Celia couldn't stifle her moan as her feet touched the floor. "Ri..."
He swung her up into his arms. "Don't argue. Your feet are mincemeat and we need to get out fast. Finn's holding a way out."
"He can do that?" she mumbled.
"Looks like." She buried her face against his neck as heat hit her. "Hang on. With a bit of luck"
o0oSunny
felt it coming – Finn was on his knees, eyes barely open. The last few glimmers of his strength were dimming.
"Let go!" she ordered.
If he heard, he didn't respond. A spark winked and out, and she knew there was no choice. He would hate her for it: she would hate herself too, but she would not watch Finn die
like this.
With one quick tap, she broke his concentration. He grabbed for the power with a howl, but it was already gone. The fire roared and twisted upwards like hands punching the air in
victory. The path was devoured in an instant.
Finn collapsed to the floor, heads in his hands. "You…"
She knelt beside him. "Me."
He struggled up, every motion slumped with exhaustion. Nothing but righteous anger propelled him. "You've killed them."
"Maybe. Ten seconds and I'd have killed you. I'm not going to watch you die needlessly." I have seen enough of that in the hollow place, she added silently. I have left so many to
die because I couldn't even save myself. "I'm sorry."
"Not..." He toppled, limbs unable to hold him. "Not good enough. Never good enough."
"I know," she whispered, because it was true.The
world ruptured; a noise like a jet engine snarled around them. Riose staggered in a backdraft, and she gripped his arms. His heart was hammering in her ears, and more than
anything, that made it real.
"Way out's gone," he said briefly. "Cee, I'm going to get us out but it's going to hurt."
"More than being burned alive?" she said in his ear.
"Good point. Hopefully less." He walked back from the wall, then turned. "We're going through that."
"...through?"
"Hold tight. I'm going to hit it with my back." He hefted her effortlessly, and Celia realised he was trying to hold her to protect her body. "I'll do what I can but your legs might get
scratched."
"At least they'll match my feet," she said, trying to keep the fear from her voice. "What about your back? I mean...the wall's wood. And it's on fire. That's like vampire kryptonite."
"Yeah, but think how incredibly cool it's going to look when I explode out of a burning building carrying the damsel in distress. They'll have to gold plate my man card."
She laughed, almost, but it sounded like a sob. Then he was tensing, and when he burst into motion, despite herself, she screamed into his shoulder, the fear rushing up her like the
flames. She could not look, but felt the lurch as he turned at the last second to hit the wall.
It felt like every bone in her body crunched under the impact; wood screamed and splintered, and pain splintered in her knees and legs with it, and the world was nothing but heat
and noise and the knowledge that this was how it endedAnd
then they were out in air which felt as cold as ice, gnawing at every inch of her exposed skin. They were out and she was alive, and she looked up with amazed eyes to see his
smokesmeared face. It was all right. Somehow, it was all right.
Then she glimpsed, flaring from his shoulders like the golden ghost of wings, fire.
"Riose, roll!" she bawled through a raw throat.
And he obeyed – they hit the ground hard in a tangle of limbs as around her the world pinwheeled, ground and sky and ground and sky. The breath was pummelled from her by the
uncaring dirt, and she lost track of everything.
When her senses crawled back, she was on her side. Orange light played on the ground in strange shapes – she reached for it with a hand as weak as if she'd aged eighty years.
From the knees up, she was all bruises. From the knees down, there was pain in myriad forms; sharp, dull, itchy, inflamed. She made the executive decision not to look.
They had broken through the back of the barn, out into empty land ringed by the forest. What remained of the building was burning ferociously. Every so often, as another part
collapsed, crashes punctuated the crackle of the fire. Bits of broken wood were scattered around them, smoking.
She looked for Riose and found him just behind her. He was flat on his stomach and still. Incredibly still. A terrible lurch went through her – with panicked hands, she dragged
herself closer. His back was a marbled mess. What remained of his shirt was scraps that framed the bloodied and raw burns.
"Ri?" Half his face was pressed to the ground; she brushed the hair from his eyes. "Riose? I'm sorry. This is my fault."
He groaned. One eye opened slowly. "Is it? Don't tell me you torched the barn. Was Will that bad?"
Relief swept her. "You're okay. I thought..."
"I'm definitely alive. No one dead hurts this much. And none of this is your fault. That was not a normal fire." He braced himself on his elbows, and hissed in pain. "Your face says
it's bad," he mumbled groggily. "Are backless dresses going to be a nogo?"
She swallowed. "Good news: this was officially my favourite stupid stunt of the evening. Bad news: you left quite a bit of your skin on that wall and we aren't going back to get it.
Good news: we survived."
There was a pause, then he said, "Did you just try to shit sandwich my second degree burns?"
"Yes. Did it help?"
"Still hurts like hell. I'm not moving again unless it's an emergency. What about you?"
"It's not feeling too good," she admitted. "I haven't looked."
He turned his head briefly. "I've seen worse."
"Ri, I know your past. That's not comforting."
His smile looked like an effort, but genuine. "I've seen...much worse?"
"I'll take it." She reached for his hand, and the feeling of him there, warm and real, steadied her. "Wait, what did you mean it wasn't a normal fire?"
"Sunny and I were outside when it started. The barn went up like it was soaked in gasoline. Someone set that fire."
"…why?" she breathed, horrified.
"Your guess is as good as"
A whistling noise drowned out his words. He paused, and her own puzzlement was reflected in his eyes.
Above them, fizzling white looped and exploded into glittering stars. And then another: a screaming rocker that blew overhead.
Finn's fireworks. Someone had breached the ward.
She looked up, towards the trees. For a moment, she saw nothing, and hoped it was a mishap. Then they emerged – a jangling chain of dark figures. The firelight revealed
Halloween masks and worse, weapons. Baseball bats. A wrench. And – oh yes, of course – a hockey stick.
"Riose?" she whispered. "I think that emergency's here."
"Did you have fireworks planned?" Sunny asked, squinting through the smoke at the coloured sparks.
>
"Huh?" Finn was flat on his back, a hand over his forehead. He hadn't said a word to her. His anger hung on the air, a wispy smoke that was a poor imitation of the real deal.
"That's not funny."
"I'm not being funny. I think a rocket just went off." Red blossomed on the air like a chrysanthemum. "There's another."
His fingers clenched against the ground. "Not now. I can't raise a damn spark."
"What is it?"
"Early warning system." He took a deep breath. "The fireworks go off when gatecrashers trip my spell."
She was on her feet, itching to do something. "I'll see who it is."
"I already know. It's your bosom buddies, Mike and Kirsty." His bitterness twisted on the air.
She gazed down at him. "They're not my friends. They're people I had lunch with. And one of them beat up Celia. You think I want to hang around with them now?"
"You didn't seem that fond of Celia when you left her to burn," he pointed out flatly.
She had to stamp down hard on her anger. Save it for training, she told herself. When you can beat the air and pretend it's his head. "You're angry, I get it. But let's not write them
off yet. In fact..." She glared at him. "Ever spoken mind to mind with Riose?"
His eyes opened. "Yes."
"Good. Let me have that memory, and I'll see if I can contact him."
Animation stirred in his face. "Here."
She reached into his mind, careful: he was fragile as lace, wrung out by his battle. She lifted the memory with light hands, and there was the presence that was Riose: bluegreen,
strong, vigilant. She could recognise him anywhere.
Sunny cast out her thoughts in an everwidening spiral. It was moments before she picked him up. Relief flooded her.
Riose?
There was a startled pause. Who's this?
Sunny. Are you both – did you get out?
Yes. Just. We've got bigger problems. She felt his grim determination. Six of them, armed, and neither of us in any shape to fight.
She smiled, anticipation singing through her veins. Then aren't you lucky I'm here?
She tossed Finn an ironic salute. "They're alive. Mind if I go kick some ass?"
He stared at her as if seeing someone new. "No. Don't kill them," he said, and she wouldn't wonder until later what he'd seen in her face that made him add that.
Worse yet, she supposed her answer didn't provide him much comfort.
I was in a club; music swirled around me, and a sea of bodies hurled me around the room. Panic filled me as I realised I'd lost the others in the crowd, leaving me entirely on my
own in a foreign environment. You didn't really get a lot of clubbing in Briar Creek, the closest thing I'd ever been to one was a particularly wild house party held by one of my
fellow seniors, so this was completely new to me.
The shadows around the room shifted, making me uneasy and persuading me to put as much distance between those dark edges as possible. Relief flooded me as I broke my way
off the dance floor, the suffocating mass of writhing bodies behind me. Somehow I found myself at the bar, ordering a drink and returning to my search for the others, who were
still nowhere in sight. Icy cold fear ran down my spine, filling me with a peculiar sort of dread that I'd never experienced before, as my body shivered at the feeling. Something bad
was going to happen. I knew it as surely as I knew that fire was hot, the sea was made of water, and the sky was blue.
A girl seated herself next to me, and although she looked mostly harmless, I suddenly felt the need to spring up from where I sat, and run as fast and as far as I could to get away
from her. Her red painted lips pulled up into a malevolent smile, instantly forcing me to recognise them as the same pair of lips that had flashed through my mind before. Her
sickly sweet voice also matched the tinkling laughter that had rattled through my skull, making me cringe into my seat.
Things began to pick up momentum, time sped up until it was like a snowball rolling down a mountain, picking up pace by the moment. The different events that unfurled were
almost to quick for my mind to follow, as I drank my drink, feeling my vision blur. The girl then began to draw a selection of items out of her bag, and before I knew it, I'd given
her my wrist, despite the wrongness of what I was doing flowing through my gut. From there on my world seemed to be a minefield of pain, explosions of agony setting off one
after another, leaving me breathless.
I was outside. I couldn't recall how I'd gotten there, but the cold air felt nice against my clammy skin, as my world swam in front of me. A flash of teeth appeared out of nowhere,
gleaming in the darkness. I was on the floor, lying in a pool of my own ruby red blood, and I felt the teeth pierce the skin at my neck, causing me to whimper in pain as my life
leaked out of me.
My eyes started to close, letting the darkness claim me for good.
My eyes flew open as I sat up bolt straight, clutching at my head as a sharp pain cut through my consciousness. I could hear my own breathing loud in my ears, the oxygen flooding my lungs not enough to calm my racing heart. I remember. Those two words played on a reel in my head, going round and round as I processed what I'd just witnessed.
Without a doubt I knew that it had been a memory, not a dream. The memories of the night I'd arrived in Vegas and been attacked, but only now did I know that I hadn't just been
the victim of a vampire, but a witch also. Was it the same witch that had sent me the threat? I had to assume it was. Which meant that I was probably in more danger than I'd first
anticipated.
"Sleeping beauty awakes," a voice from beside me drawled. I looked up to see Jez staring at me, her red hair wild around her face. I jumped back slightly at how close she was,
causing her to let out a mischievous laugh.
Only then did my surroundings catch up with my groggy brain. I was in a car, some sort of range rover by the look of it, but I wasn't really a car person, so I couldn't be sure. The
sky through the windows was dark, littered with twinkling stars that took my breath away. But if I could see the stars as clearly as I could, that meant we could no longer be in the
city. I remembered the ache in my chest that I'd felt every time I looked up at the sky whilst in Vegas, because of the way all of the light pollution drowned out the natural beauty
above us.
"Where am I?" I whispered, my heart jumping painfully in my chest. "You're in a car, genius," Jez replied, leaning back in her seat and propping her feet on the chair in front. Delos,
who was riding shotgun, turned around in his seat to glare at Jez, but she only smiled at him, refusing to budge her feet.
I rolled my eyes in frustration at her answer. "I know that," I snapped, starting to rub small circles into my temples in an attempt to relieve my headache. The last thing I needed
right now was Jez's sass.
"We're on the way to the safe house. None of us know where it is for safety reasons," Illiana piped up from where she sat on my left side. I nodded my head in thanks to her, but
didn't say anything because of the anger that was bubbling up inside of me.
Ash had done it; he'd actually done it. He'd sent me away, despite my reasoning, despite me telling him that I didn't want to leave. I loved him, but right now I couldn't help the fury
that I felt towards him. How dare he completely disregard my wishes on something as big as this?
I felt for the silver cord that linked us together, sending all of my anger and hurt and disappointment reverberating through it. I knew he would receive my message and understand
the extent of the betrayal I felt. A dark part of me hoped that he would feel just the tiniest amount of pain for what he'd done. But that part was extremely small and was
overridden by the fact that I knew he did what he did out of l
ove.
"How long have I been out?" I asked no one in particular. "Just over an hour," Delos replied, facing forward again in his seat. I didn't recognise the driver, but I assumed he was
part of some secret sector of Circle Daybreak.
I wondered if I'd had some sort of reaction to the drug they'd given me, because my head hadn't yet stopped spinning and I had to work hard to keep my eyes focused. Perhaps it
was just a nasty side affect, but something was telling me that my state had nothing to do with whatever concoction they'd injected me with.
"How long until we get there?" I asked, hoping to distract myself from the pounding in my skull. If I concentrated on other things, the pain lessened ever so slightly. "What is this?
Twentyone questions?" Jez replied incredulously.
"Apparently that's classified information," Delos answered, ignoring Jez's remark. I detected a trace of bitterness in his voice that made me guess that he wasn't too pleased at
being left out of the loop. Delos may have agreed to come along, but he clearly wasn't happy about it. But at least he was actually here of his own free will, unlike some of us.
After that we all fell into a wary silence that felt like it would break at the tiniest of sounds. It was as if we were all waiting for something bad to happen, for something to go
wrong. Jez stared out of the window, her eyes alert as she scanned the passing trees. It reminded me of something Rashel would do, and already I felt my first pang of
homesickness.
Delos watched the road ahead, whilst his fingers drummed on the dashboard, matching the rapid beating of my heart. Illiana was reading what looked like a small book about
spells, with small illustrations of plants lining the pages. Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she flicked the page, completely oblivious to anything and everything else in the
world.
I just sat in the middle, my head tilted back to rest on the back of the seat. Gazing at the ceiling, I let the situation wash over me. My mind automatically wandered to those I'd left
behind, Mark, Jade, Rowan, Kestrel, Rashel and even Ash. Had anyone realised I was gone yet, or were they still blissfully ignorant? I had no idea what they would do once they
